Acknowledging and Understanding Black University Students’ Holistic Wellness Needs and Experiences

Overview: This phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of Black university students and their holistic wellness awareness. Findings revealed 7 major themes that explored daily wellness routines, defining wellness, adjusting to school during the COVID-19 pandemic, financial barriers to accessing health and mental health services, and assessing university health promotion.Proposal text: There are over 17 million college students enrolled in colleges and universities in the United States, with 40% of those being students of color (Lipson et al., 2018). Clark & Mitchell (2018) describe academic spaces as developmental spaces where college students learn and live, but this also where they experience social determinants of health (p. 67). College students are a priority population and higher education serves as an opportune position of chronic disease prevention and health promotion (Lederer & Oswalt, 2017). Evidence shows that health promoting behaviors such as exercise, mindfulness, good quality sleep, and healthy diets promote physical well-being and protect against substance use and mental health issues (Copeland et al., 2020).

Societal barriers can foster undue stress on Black individuals and can affect their pursuit of higher education (Mushonga, 2020). Research shows that African American students attending predominantly White institutions (PWIs) are more likely to experience race related stress, an external stigma related stressor, than those at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) (Lipson et al., 2018). A study with 1,559 African-American college students reported that they received fewer mental health services (therapy, counseling, medication) due to fear/stigma and financial concerns (Busby et al., 2019). To implement campus cultural change, institutions can address the systems that continue to marginalize African-American students while creating a more welcoming environment for students of color (Thelamour et al., 2019).

College students faced new stressors, extenuating circumstances, and new changes during the COVID-19 pandemic. The weight of the pandemic accentuates or creates new stressors including worry and fear of loved ones, sudden lifestyles changes, and constraints on physical movement and socializing due to quarantine (Son et al., 2020). Social support plays a large role in reducing mental health risks, but social distancing and isolation impacts these coping strategies (Liu et al., 2020). Within the conservation of resources theory, individuals seek to obtain, retain, protect, and foster valued resources, such as money, supportive work environment, knowledge, and self-efficacy, and minimize any threats of resource loss (Kim, 2015). Wellness programming may create a stimulus for a resource gain cycle that increases wellness self-efficacy, which is a resource defined as the belief in one’s ability to manage one’s wellness (Kim, 2015).

This qualitative phenomenological study that was conducted included 5 semi-structured interviews. Inclusion criteria included undergraduate and graduate students who have been enrolled for at least one semester, students who were not recent transfer students, and students who self-identified as Black. Participants were asked questions regarding their daily routines incorporating holistic wellness, how they personally defined wellness, their expectations of the university to support their wellness, wellness programs/services they typically offer, physical campus spaces they feel comfortable going to, and what their ideal campus looks like including wellness initiatives. This study can shed knowledge about how Black university students think about wellness holistically and how university officials can be proactive to create preventative and inclusive holistic wellness programming.